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FeedA Cook’s Tour
Guided by Rina Tonon, owner of Café Cortina, we take a culinary excursion through the Italian section in Windsor. Although it’s just across the border, it feels a like a world away
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Metro Detroit is rich in gourmet emporiums and ethnic markets and restaurants. But once in awhile, there’s nothing like a little international travel to reignite the passion for food — even when that travel involves just an affordable one-day jaunt across the border to Windsor.
Earlier this season, we asked Rina Tonon, owner of Café Cortina in Farmington Hills, to give us a cook’s tour of that city’s Italian flavor.
The day begins at Tonon’s weekend pied-à-terre, a high-rise condo on the Windsor side of the Detroit River.
“Espresso?” she asks, as we stand admiring her spectacular view of the Detroit skyline, a panorama that stretches from the Ambassador Bridge to Belle Isle and beyond.
With the adept expertise of an Italian restaurateur and hostess, she quickly fills two blue-and-white china espresso cups and asks if we’d like our caffeine with a touch of sambuca, which makes, as the Italians say, “corrected coffee.”
Photographer Cybelle Codish and I glance at each other with looks that say, “But it’s 9:30 in the morning.” By then, Tonon has already added a splash of the anise-flavored liqueur, and we accept our cups with a “when in Rome,” sense of adventure.
Properly initiated, we climb into Tonon’s SUV and begin our day as novices trailing her into markets, where she greets shopkeepers with a cheery buon giorno before launching into bilingual conversations about cheese, sausage, and the merits of various canned tomatoes.
As she drives, we learn that Tonon was born in New York, in the Arthur Avenue neighborhood of the Bronx, which is like Little Italy, she says. On a recent vacation, she returned to Arthur Avenue, where, she says, “I had fresh clams on the street.”
Wherever Tonon goes, she seeks out the best local purveyors. That includes metro Detroit, of course, and ethnic markets such as Cantoro in Livonia.
She pulls into the parking lot of Giglio’s Market on Wyandotte Street, about three blocks from the Ambassador Bridge. Open since 1967, Giglio’s stock remains primarily Italian, but the store has become more international to accommodate the international student body at the University of Windsor.
Inside Giglio’s, it’s time for another cup of “corrected” espresso, along with samples of buttery-smooth prosciutto and spicy sausage made by shopkeeper Giuseppe Giglio. His son Domenic offers slices of pecorino canestrato and a fluffy ricotta. He suggests that aged balsamic is the “ultimate foodie gift,” and generally extols the virtues of eating Italian style. As proof, he mentions a November 2005 National Geographic story on longevity that cited Sardinians as being especially long lived. He keeps a copy of the issue behind the butcher counter.
After the tasting session, Tonon sweeps through the aisles of the tiny market, pointing to her favorites:
“Tomato paste in a tube — for when you need a little bit of concentrated paste — is a staple in my house.”
“I always cook with Aurora bouillon from Italy; I use mushroom bouillon for risotto — it gives it a kick.
“I always travel with Medaglia D’Oro Instant Espresso.”
Then it’s time to meet Tonon’s good friend Angie Soares at Windsor’s Farmers Market at Market Square on Ottawa Street, so it’s “ciao” to Giglio’s.
Windsor’s version of Detroit’s Eastern Market is a bustling feast of local produce. Tonon buys Swiss chard and dandelion greens, which she’ll blanch and sauté with garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice. “I grew up with that,” she says.
Moving along, she asks us, “Do you eat prickly pear cactus? Oh, my. You cut the ends off and then split it down the middle and roll it out of the skin. They’re seedy, but they’re so sweet and so good.” She finds one at a stall, requests a knife, and offers us slices as proof.
Then she buys honey crisp apples (“so juicy”) from Wally Simpson Orchards, fifth-generation farmers from the Leamington area.
Soares, a good cook in her own right, points out Romano’s, a farmers market counter that sells mostly items that can’t be transported across the border — meat, for example. But you can buy Galati cheese, which is made in Windsor. “The freshest ricotta comes from Galati’s,” Soares says. And, Tonon adds, “They sell it at Papa Joe’s and Nino Salvaggio.” Tonon completes her rounds by picking up one-and-a-half bushels of red peppers, which prompts a discussion with Soares about how best to freeze them after roasting. Tonon removes the skin. Soares barbecues the peppers and freezes them with the wrinkled skins intact.
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